I have a panasonic mini dv video recorder. After

My Panasonic AG-DVC30 has everything installed and battery fully charged along with the DV tape installed I press record and it tells me "dv external disconnect" what gives? what good is the battery then? can you clarify?

Some of the tapes that we get can be problematic so, if you want to record professionally like the TV studios do. Here is what you must do so that you do not lose the information on your tapes. Some of the bad news is that you can not recover anything from your DV tapes if nothing was recorded on them. However the way forward from now on is to record black on your tapes before shooting on them. Here is what you do. Buy a new tape or if you want to use a used tape you do the same. You insert your tape in the camcorder, with your lens cap on that means you do not take your lens cap off and then start recording. What you will be doing is laying black on your tape so that it becomes ready for recording. It means that your tape will now be recorded with black. you can then rewind and start recording with your cap off the true recording. The tapes will not then be problematic. Please let me know if this has solved your problem.

Make sure your tape tab is open. See if this works. Sometimes the tab should be closed to prevent eraser or recording over existing film but sometimes the tape tab has to be open to allow for playback or dubbing?

you can transfer to DV tape only by using software like Edius 6 or a similar one.
First you download the p2 card on the hard drive and then you use this program to convert the video file to DV and use the camcorder as recorder connecting to pc via firewire .

If you are referring to the JVC GR-DVL520, yes it does play Mini DV tapes, as well as records to them. It will not play Mini DV tapes that were recorded on an HDV camera. HDV is used by any Mini DV camera that records HD video.

You just need a converter. here is one for you: Video Download Studio.

Only way is Play burned DVD in dvd player and provide Audio- Video out (yellow-red-white) to mini DV camera that has AV Line Input recording facility. Or find any Mini DV recorder and record tape.
In that way you can record video again on Mini DV tape.

you cannot move the spindles/cogs in a mini dv tape without pressing down a small lever on the rear of the cassette.
the lever is in the lower right, move the lever, then move the ribbon protector to the open position, then spin the cogs, the tape should be free.
if not, then you have a jamm inside the cassette, you can open these casettes by removing 4 small screws. ( this is a very fiddly job & you may ruin the casette, if you dont know how )

The physical tapes are the same size, but the encoding on the tapes are different. Unless the panasonic recorder can play DVcam, you're out of luck.

Dan

you should rewind the tape before playing
if not, then maybe the overwrite tab is open which means to cant rewrite tapes, and you wont film